


Under Glass

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-02-21 04:49:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2455340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there is a greenhouse business and a romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: vague mention of spousal abuse, not within the main pairing.
> 
> And silphium was, according to Wikipedia, was used as a contraceptive (or an abortion agent? I'm not very sure) in ancient Greece until it was driven extinct. I just like the idea of wizards preserving the plant's existence and still using it in the modern age :)

Astoria Greengrass peeked out from behind the branches of a thousand-year cosmic tree, trying very hard not to be seen by the person she was observing. With her blonde hair, dark purple robes, and faint aroma of Miss Merrywither's no. 9, the one with the scent of the ocean on a beautiful summer day, she knew very well that she was not cut out for the whole espionage business.

She watched a woman carefully pull out a plant from the earth, her hands protected by pale pink gardening gloves that matched her outfit perfectly.

Too soon, Fleur Weasley picked up her bucket, paid a money tree for the plants, and turned to walk toward the exit.

Astoria watched and she did not engage, because today was only an information-gathering day. The next time Fleur came to Greengrass Greenhouses, she would speak.

.

Astoria usually paid no mind to the people who visited her greenhouses and stores. Since taking up the mantle of owner of Greengrass Greenhouses from her father, who'd died three years ago in the war, she'd changed the practices of the greenhouses quite severely. She'd transformed it into a unique, no questions asked service. (It helped that she wasn't a talkative person herself.) Of course, dark plants and exotic plants usually used in dark potions had been pulled from the houses, but everything else stayed the same. She'd expanded the plant selection by almost fifty percent, and added various new insects to the ecosystem, first on a trial basis, then on a permanent one. Everyone agreed that her greenhouses had flourished. She'd carefully not mentioned that the changes were her head herbologist's idea, and he'd tried to no avail to implement the changes under her father's heavy thumb.

She wasn't the nurturing sort, neither did she have a particularly green thumb. She had always been better with the theoretical side of potions and horticulture than the practical. Her many assistants (minions of Greengrass, they cheerfully called themselves) dealt with the upkeep of the plants.

Now, plant buyers were carefully vetted the first time they came in, then allowed to go by their own devices. They'd come in, take gloves and an enchanted plant pouch, and pull their needed plants. Each time they pulled out a plant, a number would appear in the air, showing how much they owed the greenhouse. The number would continue hovering around their person until they paid their dues to one of the nine money pouches hung on various trees in the greenhouse. If one tried to leave the garden without paying, even if they left their plants, they would be stopped at the door, bound by the magical agreement they signed when becoming a member of Greengrass Greenhouses. They could enter, pick, and leave, all without needing to say a word.

Neville Longbottom had sent her a letter saying it was the most peaceful garden he had ever been in. She kept in on top of the gushing letters of other herbologists and potioneers. They were a solitary lot of people, most less than interested in small talk when they wanted to just focus on their work, some horrified by it. She had a feeling her former Potions professor would have loved it.

And all approved of the ban for life for damaging live plants or ingredient rows.

But Astoria did keep track of the plants bought from her houses, half for bookkeeping, half to keep an eye on her customers. For the sake of privacy, she didn't keep a record of who bought what, just what was bought.

So when she noticed a slight upturn of silphium in January, she remembered the moment, but set it aside. It wasn't really her problem that a woman had started to use a very old method of birth control instead of the usual St. Mungo's kind. Perhaps she was just another witch looking to get more in touch with the natural world. It wasn't like it hurt anyone. But she kept an eye on the woman in her records. The woman came in twice-monthly without fail for the next few months. The plant wasn't dangerous if used frequently and was highly effective. But it was easy to overdose with, and each sip of the brew had to be timed almost to the minute for maximum effectiveness. Had Astoria had any interest in having the kind of sex that might get her pregnant, she definitely would have chosen the St. Mungo's version instead.

Many pureblood women drank the plant's brew in secret if they didn't want children but didn't have another way. If their husbands were abusive or manipulative, and would make sure they couldn't get to St. Mungo's or another potions dealer to buy the regular kind of contraception.

Astoria's mother had drunk it for years, though that had been because she was taken with the idea of new age medicine, not because their caring father put his interests above hers.

But it made her wary, all the same, and lead to her spying on an innocent woman from behind a tree. And blushing, because she hadn't expected it to be Fleur Delacour of all the women in the world.

.

It should be said for the record that Astoria was not in any way nursing a crush on Fleur.

She'd had a bit of a crush on her in school, when she and the rest of the Beauxbatons students came to Hogwarts. Fleur had been older, more mature, and prettier than anyone she'd ever seen.

She must be around thirty years old now, still more mature than Astoria (she was married for Merlin's sake!), and still beautiful.

It had been Fleur who'd cemented Astoria's realization that she liked girls instead of boys, though she'd dated Draco for a bit. She'd thought she'd liked Draco for a time, had tried to convince herself that he'd be a great man to marry. But eventually, she'd realized she'd liked him because he was the girlish boy she'd ever seen. He was pretty, on the short side, and had amazingly delicate features. They'd even dated for a while, until they both decided that the opposite sex just wasn't really their type.

.

These thoughts in her mind, Astoria took a seat on a bench near the rows of silphium on the next day that Fleur usually came. Soon, around the corner came Fleur Delacour – Weasley, she reminded herself belatedly, though she would probably always be Fleur Delacour to her.

"Madame Delacour," she said quietly, hoping to not disturb the other people in the greenhouse.

Fleur turned to Astoria and smiled in recognition after a moment's. "Madame Greengrass," she said. Her eyes crinkled a little and Astoria was hard-pressed not to stare. Fleur kissed Astoria's cheeks twice, Astoria doing the same in return. "I haven't seen you in quite a few years. You've grown up."

"I'm happy to not be the girl crying in the bathroom because the others were picking on her," Astoria replied wryly. It was how they'd met, after all. Fleur had entered the second floor, right wing girls' bathrooms and had only left an hour later, with a small blonde-haired girl clinging to her robes. Astoria had come to the bathrooms for solace from bullies, and left feeling better and with the biggest crush she'd ever had.

"But she was so cute," Fleur teased, sitting down on the bench next to Astoria's. "Adorable and sweet."

"Please, I clung to you until the school year ended," she said, inwardly cringing at the memory. She'd been so terribly obvious. She was just glad she hadn't asked Fleur to the Yule Ball like she'd fantasized about doing. It would have been a terrible moment for both of them.

"And then I left, and you never wrote back," Fleur said, trailing off and staring questioningly at Astoria.

"I'm sorry. That was terribly rude of me." She sighed. She was a grown woman. It wasn't like telling Fleur this would break her, emotionally or socially. It wasn't a secret that she liked women. In this day and age, it was even almost accepted. "I had romantic feelings for you, and your leaving made me heartbroken for a while. I'm sorry I was a bad friend to you at the end."

"I had no idea," Fleur replied. Judging by her face, Astoria thought she really hadn't. Maybe she'd just thought Astoria just thought of her as a very good friend. A very good friend that she'd wanted to be close to all the time.

"I was very embarrassed about it," Astoria said. "I was still really working through my feelings about it all at that point."

"Do you have a girlfriend now?" Fleur asked. "I never stopped hoping that you'd be happy one day. You were such a sad little teenager."

"You're terrible," Astoria said, choking on a laugh. "I was being bullied. Of course I was sad." She barely even remembered those days now. "I am now. Happy, that is. Though there's no one in my life right now, I'm alright with just my job and family. What about you? I heard you got married a couple years back."

"Yes, to Bill Weasley. He is a great husband," Fleur said. "I'm glad we married."

"Are you?" Astoria asked, uncomfortably knowing that she was going to make her friend angry at her in a moment. But she needed to know.

Fleur shot her a glance. "Of course."

"I noticed someone was buying silphium," she quickly said. "It's mostly used for contraception. A lot of the time, it's used by women whose husbands are abusive and controlling of their birth control. I wanted to make sure that woman was okay." She paused, trying to judge Fleur's expression, but it was too blank. "Do you need any help?" she asked reluctantly. Because it wasn't that she didn't want to help people, she just didn't want to be a witness in a domestic abuse case for the fourth time in her life. And also, she really didn't want that to have happened to Fleur, beautiful Fleur who was too wonderful for something so ugly to happen to her.

Fleur's hands clenched and her expression tightened and Astoria felt her heart drop.

"Just say one word and I'll never approach you about this again, alright?" she asked softly, trying not to think about whether she was lying or not. Because this was Fleur, and Astoria would never be able to turn her back on this particular woman. "You can come as often as you want to and you'll never have to see me. I just wanted you to be okay."

Fleur sighed, her body's stress leaving in the motion. "It's not that," she told Astoria with a careful smile. "Though I'm glad that you've grown up into an even more marvelous person. I just… We agreed, Bill and I, that we'd start trying to have a child. He's always wanted a big family, and I like the idea. But then… We had sex, yes, for the first time without protection, and I suddenly couldn't bear the thought of all this. And I couldn't bear the thought of telling him. He'd be heartbroken."

"It's alright," Astoria said, placing a hand on top of Fleur's and taking hold.

"It's not. I gave myself a year to decide. And it's halfway done and I'm nowhere near deciding."

Astoria stayed silent, half out of relief that Fleur's problems weren't so grave, half out of certainty that there wasn't really any comfort she could give. She wasn't an expert on matters of the heart, and she'd ruled children out of her future a long time ago.

"If you want, I can put a kettle of tea on, and we can talk some more?" she said, and Fleur's grateful smile was all she needed.

.

There was a lounge next to the appartition chamber for the more chatty sort, who frequently met there to discuss the latest plant breeding experiments and potion developments. Astoria, not an intellectual herself (of that sort, at least), never joined in their discussions, but subtly encouraged their discussions by adding some nice, soft couches to the room and having invisible house elves keep always keep a platter of sandwiches, pastries, and hot tea on the table.  

It was empty when Fleur and Astoria entered it for the very first time, as almost strangers despite their shared time.

It was empty the second time they entered it, as acquaintances.

It was half full, but peaceful all the same, when they entered it as friends.

It was empty when Astoria entered it alone, months later, after Fleur had told her that she and Bill would need to talk.

It continued to be empty when Fleur didn't visit and Astoria couldn't bring herself to owl her. She didn't want to hear the news of Fleur and Bill's reconciliation, of their happiness, of their plans for the future.

It was filled with only a sheet of parchment when Astoria entered it one November morning. It lay innocently on the coffee table, at first glance easily mistaken for someone's plant-related notes. But Astoria caught her name on the paper, and picked it up.

_Dear Astoria,_

_I'm sorry for how long it's been. But I'm at the place we used to meet, if you still want to see me._

_Love,_

_Fleur_

_(PS: Check the back of this parchment?)_

.

Astoria dropped the parchment after flipping it over, and ran to the silphium bed, letting the Weasley-Delacour marriage annulment document flutter onto the ground.

Fleur was waiting for her on the bench they'd reunited on all those months ago, still as beautiful as ever, holding a bouquet of roses.

Gently, Astoria stepped around the hedges, and came up to Fleur, her smile impossibly wide.

"For you, mademoiselle," Fleur said, holding the bouquet out to her. They weren't some Astoria's stock—she didn't sell any decorative flowers—but they were the loveliest things she had seen in a long time.

But they weren't as lovely as the expression on Fleur's face when Astoria leaned in for a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
